


Hidden

by Umeko



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-11-16 10:32:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11251323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Umeko/pseuds/Umeko
Summary: I just had to write this one-off where Mornel chooses to remain in Middle Earth instead of sailing back at the end of the War.  It may not make sense if you are not following my Daughter of Fire series until part 3.





	Hidden

“What was that all about? Suggesting we hand that _thing_ to Iarwain ben-adar? How do we know he would aid us against the Shadow?”

I pause in mid-step at the sound of his voice and turn, allowing my glamour to slip. This wing of the Last Homely House is ours alone. Few other dare venture here. Those who do know us well enough.

“Peace, Lindir. It was only a thought. One which Elrond has rightly ruled out. It will be the halflings who set out to destroy the Ring, and Mithrandir goes with them.”

“Can we trust them?”

“Bilbo seems to have withstood it well enough… We can only hope his kinsman is of equally stern stuff, if not sterner.”

We have grown used to our current names over the centuries. We cast aside our old identities when Beleriand sank beneath the waves. Our former selves have been long lost in the mists of time. Lord Elrond ensured that with each retelling of the tale. My arm aches, even though it is cast from mithril below the shoulder. Dear Tyelpe had crafted it for me after I lost my right arm at the end of the First Age. After his demise, we had sought out the services of Narvi’s clan in Khazad-dum, before it became Moria. It has been too long since it was last serviced and the cogs within grow stiff and worn.

“Does it need winding or oiling?” Lindir asks, noting my discomfort. I nod in silence. Together we go to his room. I loosen my robes enough for the straps to be unfastened. He reaches for the box of tools he keeps hidden under his bed. Such tools are far more intricate than any he uses on his lute or harp. Over the centuries, the task of maintenance fell to him.

With a tired sigh, I sit cross-legged in the Haradim manner on his cot while he oils and tinkers with the inner workings of my arm. The scars on his palm from the Silmaril have long faded to pale white lines. Under Elrond’s care, he has regained the use of his hand well enough to strum a harp. It would be a terrible pity if my brother were to be cut off entirely from his music.

Music had kept him sane in those first years after we lost our eldest brother, singing along the shore until he ruined his voice. He was so far gone he made no attempt to flee when Gil-galad and Cirdan finally came for him. Elrond had pleaded beside me for his foster father’s life and freedom. Elros had long sailed to rule over the remaining Edain in their promised homeland by then.

No one knew exactly why Gil-galad spared Maglor when so many had cried out for his blood. Perhaps he deemed it pointless to strike down an elf so broken. He was released first to Tyelpe’s care, and later Elrond’s. Galadriel can barely tolerate her cousin although I am always welcome in Lothlorien.

We had stood helpless as Sauron wove his charm over poor Tyelpe. Bewitched, Tyelpe had cast us out of his city when we tried to warn him of the fallen Maiar. When we followed Gil-galad’s forces back from Lindon, it was only to see Eregion burning and our poor nephew’s corpse hung up as a gruesome banner.

Imladris was a valley of welcomed peace and respite after the War of the Last Alliance. Lindir is a minstrel. His hands have not held a weapon in many yeni. This was part of the agreement we had with Gil-galad and now Elrond. I am another matter. On occasion I would ride out with Glorfindel and the twin sons of our lord to hunt orcs. However, Lindir warned me that I would ruin my arm with all that fighting and hard riding. He would have preferred that Erestor kept to his office, working over the household accounts and scrolls. Perhaps he would have preferred if I had sailed back after the War of Wrath and left him to wander the shore

“How could I continue if anything happens to you?” Lindir had hugged and pleaded for me to remain in the valley. He knows too well the restlessness of our line. Sometimes we would ride out quietly to the upper valley, to just be ourselves again. My stern demeanour deters curious elves from our corner of the house and Lindir’s meek manner causes him to be overlooked at all events save the nightly songs and tales in the Hall of Fire. Although he no longer has the same voice he had in the past, it was still melodious and fair. The elves of Middle Earth do not know me – the last child of Feanor. Of the Feanoriel no tales were sung.

A nis without an arm would be remarked upon in the Second Age when so many had sailed across the sea. A ner perhaps less so. Hence my choice of disguise. In Valinor, I would have had my arm restored to me. In Valinor, no one would worry about my safety as I ventured out exploring the wilds. Endore is not Valinor. One day we would sail with Lord Elrond. We promised him that. We are a family, perhaps not the same one I had dreamed of as an elfling, but a family all the same.

We have shared in Elrond’s joys and sorrows in the valley. The loss of his lady wife saw us consoling him the best we could. The twins exasperated us endlessly with their pranks. Still, we delighted in teaching them music and lore despite them not having any aspirations to be loremasters or bards. Arwen was Galadriel’s protégé. She had made that sufficiently clear when she requested that her granddaughter be sent to Lothlorien on reaching her majority. Perhaps our cousin had looked into the future and seen the fate which awaited her granddaughter. I know I have. Arwen will take the same road as her uncle.

“Thranduilion’s light will have stood out in Mordor like a beacon. There’s Sinda blood in him through his father,” I replied to Lindir’s unspoken question as he puts aside his tools, his work done for now.

“If they should fail…”

“Then we can choose to stand and fight, or sail. We will sail eventually. The Age of Man dawns and we are too diminished to vanquish the Shadow.” Never more will we be able to raise the armies the likes of the Last Alliance. Fewer children are born to our kind with the passing centuries and too many had sailed already.

“It will be up to the race of Man now,” Lindir concedes.

Formenos beckons us. Glorfindel informed us when he sailed from Aman in the Second Age that it was thriving under the wise stewardship of his mother and my law-sisters. Olorin brought further glad tidings with the release of the twins from Mandos. They were to be instated as stewards of the keep alongside their wives, twin healers they had met in Lorien during their recovery.

We do not know if any more of our brothers have been freed from Mandos since or how Formenos fared now. I made that choice on the beach so long ago to remain, even as the rot continued eating at my arm, stopping almost at the shoulder thanks to the skills of Gil-galad’s healers. Perhaps that was when Elrond had truly found his calling as a healer. I tell myself I do not regret my choice.

“Estel,” Lindir whispers. Refastening my robes, I join him at the window. In the garden below, Elrond’s foster-son and daughter are in intimate conversation. Catching a flash of a robe at a gallery window across from us, I see Elrond is watching his offspring with a frown.   

 _He will lose Arwen._ He catches us watching him and disappears back into the shadows of the gallery. We watch him go. Perhaps in later days, he will need our comfort and council, but not tonight. Below us, the lovers part company just as an apparently oblivious Legolas strolls out singing from a copse of alder trees.

The die is cast. The Nine Walkers will go forth in the morning. We can only wait and hope.

**Author's Note:**

> This is just my take on who Lindir and Erestor really are. Elves in PJ's movies seem quite capable of glamour so it is possible for Mornel and Maglor to use that to establish their new identities.


End file.
